Hi!
I like to do a long race - about 20 miles, just before FLM, to test out my race pace (not quite, would be a bit slower on the day).
The Worthing twenty is three weeks before - is this too close or not? I'm in south London - any other suggestions slightly earlier (Thanet on March 2nd looks the best bet)
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I'll probably do a 20 or two closer to the day, but slower - something similar to your schedule Hilly.
How far do you go for the "long" run the weekend before?
Throughout my schedule I've tried to make every 3rd or 4th week an easy week, the Mad March Hare falls on such a week.
3 weeks before the marathon I will do my longest run to date, 3hrs 20, the only run I'm doing by time on feet. Then my taper begins and I'll do 15 miles on 30/3 and 10 miles easy the Sunday before the marathon.
If you are looking for a good race a bit earlier, the Cranleigh 15/21 is the week before Worthing. I did it last year, and it is very scenic and reasonably flat (only a couple of decent sized hills).
Your 3hr 20 run is presumably at a slower pace than your target marathon pace, othewise you'll end up running the full marathon distance?
I couldn't fidn the Mad March Hare in the RW listings, whereabouts is it?
The Mad March Hare is at Christchurch, Dorset. If you're interested I'd enter asap as there's only a 300 limit. You can find the details and entry form on the following site on the League Homepage
http://www.dorset-athletics.freeserve.co.uk/homepage1.htm
I'll be doing Canliegh the week before Worthing and then I'll do the 8 mile race at Kingston followed by another 2 laps at easy pace. This should combine a good fast race with a long run. Hopefully getting the benefits of both.
Hilly, another scenic photo. Where's this one?
photo is Portland again, just a different part to the other photo.
http://www.dorset-athletics.freeserve.co.uk/homepage1.htm
3 lasp of Kingston - isn't that what they do for the full marathon PM?? It sounds like a lot that close to London. I know it's not full race pace all the way but even so...
I think 3 laps at Kingston is about 18-19 miles, it was the year I did it, although it was the foot and mouth year and the course was a bit odd.
my feeling is that if you're going to run 20 milers within three weeks of London you could blow your marathon if you are planning on running them at 20 mile race pace. even marathon pace for this distance this close to the date could well be damaging. it takes a long time to get over racing that kind of distance. frankly you can only run a marathon so often and it takes so much work to do so, so why risk blowing it on a build-up race? I know of scores of runners who've done just that on 20 milers.
I'll shut up.
Thanks for the input too Achilles, what you said was pretty much wht I was concerned about. I know people who did it last year and did very well in FLM, but a lot of the club stayed away as it was too close.